I held back my release until she was practically screaming. “Let your alpha go,” I demanded gruffly against her back. I don’t think she realized she could. But once I said it there was no gentle surge. It burst. The power poured over me. Through me. I let my beast go and she screamed as her orgasm erupted in waves of energy. My teeth found the back of her neck where it met her shoulder. I bit down… drawing blood… claiming. My seed spilled inside her warmth, pulsing with power, and my cry echoed hers.
The sweet taste of Talya’s blood lingered in my mouth as our breathing slowed. I lay half on top of her, her legs now resting on the length of the bed, my leg flung over hers still trapping her to the mattress, but she didn’t try to move. Her head was resting on a pillow and turned toward me. I moved hair from her face so I could see her eyes. I can’t even describe the look she had. Beautiful didn’t come close.
The pieces of me that died with Alba weaved together. So why did I feel lost? I’d carried my hatred like a shield, but that shield disappeared. No, it crumbled under the onslaught that was Talya. I tried picturing Alba, but she was gone.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” she whispered.
Those simple words made the loss of Alba burn again and pain erupted in my chest. What had I done? I didn’t deserve to find peace. “I didn’t want this. I told you to stay away.”
Her dreamy eyes opened wide. She sucked in a quick breath of air. She began wiggling from beneath me and I fought the need to keep her close letting her go. She turned and looked at me before walking through the door. The fury in her eyes made her sexy as all fucking hell. “Stay away from me you son of a bitch. And don’t forget my promise—if you touch Rondy I’ll kill you.”
She walked through the door, but I moved before she shut it behind her. I pulled her into me, her back pressed against my chest and whispered, “Warn the boy to keep his hands off you or you’ll have an excuse to kill me. That’s my promise.” I released her as suddenly as I had grabbed her causing her to stumble forward. I slammed the door.
There was nothing in the fucking room to kick but the bed, and the soft mattress carried no appeal. I took the private door outside and shifted as soon as it closed behind me. I ran. Like I always do. I ran until my muscles burned and my chest heaved. I ran because Talya’s scent and voice replaced memories of Alba.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Talya
My heart physically broke, the crumbled remains fractured beyond repair. It was more than I could handle. I made my way upstairs, each step heavy and filled with humiliation. Maybe that wasn’t the word. Each step took me closer to judgment by my peers. I was mated, but couldn’t hold my mate. I don’t believe I’d ever heard of it happening before, at least not after the claiming.
I could feel the cats in their rooms. All awake. The only people sleeping were Cecily and Rondy. The power surge from a mated pair affected every animal, including beastkind, for miles. What a joke. At least when I had sex with the cats in South America there was usually a reward—food, an extra blanket. Hell, life for another day. My mate just slammed a door against my ass and defeated me without drawing blood. I laughed at myself as the ache in my shoulder reminded me there was blood. Another joke.
Becca came down the stairs from the third floor as I stood in the hall wondering what the hell I should do. The stairwell was shaded, but I knew the small bit of light was uncomfortable for her. She gave me a pitying look. “Come upstairs, Talya.” She turned and walked back to her rooms.
Like I had any choice but to follow. Crap, I was covered in his scent. The mangy, flea-bitten odor of sex with a dog. My cat purred and I almost burst from my skin just so I could throw my damn cat off the three-story balcony to the cement below. Yes, it would hurt us both, but if she purred again I wouldn’t give a fuck.
“Here,” Becca handed me sweatpants and a t-shirt.
I looked toward the bathroom. “May I wash up first?”
“Take your time.”
I walked in and closed the door. I turned both showerheads full blast as hot as they would go. I needed the painful burn. Needed to feel something besides devastation.
I wasn’t crying. Could a pain be so deep tears wouldn’t come? I grabbed the soap and began washing every inch of my skin, letting the steam fill my lungs.
“We wait for you, Talya.”
Holy fuck. I belonged to The Moor now and his voice filled my head. Vorlyk was no longer my liege. My legs wouldn’t support me and I crumbled. Tears finally flowed. They mixed with the water washing away nothing. Great sobs that I couldn’t hold back.
“Come here,” Becca lifted me from the shower’s floor. The Moor held a towel and wrapped it around me. They helped me dress as I mechanically placed my arms and legs where they positioned the clothes. Numbness took away all emotion and that was a good thing.
Without remembering how I got there, I sat on their couch with a small pillow clutched to my chest. Becca sat on one side and The Moor on the other.
“I want you to keep an open mind while I tell you a story.” The Moor’s hand rested on my arm giving it a gentle squeeze. I couldn’t look at him.
“More than a year ago, I came upon a group of cats tearing a wolf apart. It was the wolf Amelia sent me to bring back to her. He’d fought with everything he had. His intestines hung from a long slash in his stomach, all four legs were broken, and that was just what I could see. He had nothing left, but he fought on. There were seven dead cats scattered around him. Five remained to finish him off. The death the cats were giving him was nothing compared to what Amelia had planned. For his bravery, I stood by to watch him die. A cat nudged him thinking him dead at last. I heard the wolf laugh as he clamped his jaws on the cat’s throat and ripped it out.
“Before the others could pounce, I killed them. I will never forget the wolf’s eyes. Misery so deep, it touched me in a place I hadn’t visited within myself for over a century. It was more than pain and I knew the wolf craved death. I bent over him and he shifted to human. The eyes looking back at me were already dead. He said two words as I leaned over him. ‘Thank you.’ He thought I planned to end his life and he thanked me. That wolf is now your mate. He is the strongest beastkind I have ever encountered. He is also the most stubborn. It took months to get his story. Months of him begging me to kill him.”
The Moor looked past me to his mate and she nodded. His hand tightened on my arm. “I once loved a woman as Ivan loved Alba. The pain of her death will forever haunt my dreams. I didn’t find Becca for hundreds of years after my beloved’s death. If it wasn’t for Becca I would never have let her memory go. Ivan’s salvation is within you. He fought with everything he had. He fought to die. He needs you so he can live.”
I heard the words and the shattered pieces of my heart shredded a little more. I lifted my head to The Moor. “He hates me,” I said in anguish as more tears ran down my face.
It was Becca who spoke next, “He hates himself. Hates the fact he didn’t save Alba and hates that it wasn’t him who died. Only a man can be that selfish.” She looked at her mate. “It’s easy to choose giving up your life over the one you love. The greater sacrifice is taking the pain of their loss on your own shoulders and setting them free.”
The Moor’s hand traveled through my hair and turned me so my neck was exposed. “Welcome to our clan, Talya.”
He fed from the intimate spot reserved only for clan mates. I now belonged to The Moor and Becca. No matter what happened with Ivan, I had a home.
Becca fed next, their combined enzymes relieving the ache in my chest and giving me renewed energy. I was ready to face the cats and wanted to do it before Cecily and Rondy woke up.
The women’s door was open a crack and I entered without knocking. Their hushed whispers stopped immediately. I now had the ability to mentally communicate with Isa and Mitty. I truly hoped Lacy and Marisol would join the clan and the mind sharing would extend to them. They were strong females and we needed them. Isa and Mitty would learn their own str
engths too. I could help put them on that path.
“I am mated to your alpha.” They knew it, but I wanted to say the words. Ivan could fight it as much as he desired, but it didn’t change what happened in his room. I looked at each of them in turn. “What you may not know is I am alpha and represent the women of this pack. We are not a pride and will never use that term. I’m sure none of us have fond memories of pride life.” I stopped to allow my words to sink in.
Marisol spoke, “I mean no disrespect to our alpha’s mate, but female cats do not become alpha.”
She was correct at least as far as we knew until me. I felt I wasn’t the first, but chances were good that female alphas existed and the male cats killed them. Marisol impressed me for saying aloud what they were all thinking. It was incredibly easy to show them. I slowly let my power build. The heavy buzz would be running across their skin. I wasn’t forcing them to shift, but I wanted them to know I could. Marisol moved close to me first. She went down to her knees and touched my foot. I moved back. “No.” I helped her stand. “We will never kneel at another’s feet again. The time for women as partners in the affairs of men is now. We have a voice and if you won’t speak, I will do it for you. But only until you find your inner strength and do it yourselves.”
Marisol’s shoulders heaved as she cried. The other women wiped their eyes while keeping their gazes down. “May I hold Meesha?” I asked Lacy. The child slept in her mother’s arms. Lacy stepped forward and handed her to me. I took the child and held her up, the stump of my arm against her curled knees. Her eyes opened. It wasn’t easy because holding babies was not something I practiced, but I pinched her little human nose and had to catch her as she shifted to a tiny ball of fur.
I gazed at the women. “This is what we are. You will no longer hide your cat. There is no shame in the animal we carry within. Hiding stops today.”
Marisol trembled. “But he hates our cat. Isa and Mitty have been with him for weeks. They…” She looked over her shoulder at the other women. “We fear him.”
My smile grew as Meesha tried chewing off my finger. “He is mated to a cat and this cat is not afraid of him. He is the alpha, but I also have a say. You will no longer hide who you are and the males will live with it or face me.” I noticed the women’s eyes looking behind me. Mase, Treson, and Jasper stood there. Mase gave me a nod.
Jasper ran past us to his mother. “May I play with her, mama?”
Isa glanced at me.
“Let them play. When Meesha is tired she will shift,” I said.
Isa ran her fingers over the boy’s head and said, “Jasper, she needs a cat to play with and be her friend. You must be gentle because she is still a baby.”
Jasper wore a pair of shorts and nothing else. Those came off and a small lion walked closer to me. I sat Meesha on the floor and he gave her a lick with his long tongue. Meesha batted his face with her tiny paw.
“I’ll take them outside so we aren’t cleaning up puddles in the new house.” Lacy said.
I needed to check on Rondy and make sure the vampire bite helped him. Then I planned to find Ivan and teach him some manners. I was not the ruling alpha of our pack and he needed to step up to the plate. A paw upside his head might help.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Ivan
Running gave me time to cool down and think. I’d done nothing but fight since Alba’s death. Fighting cats was the easy part and I did it to punish myself. I punished my children, my prior clan, and my friends. Facing them meant facing my inability to keep Alba safe. Her image was fuzzy, but the memory of her voice rang in my head.
“I didn’t need you keeping me safe.”
She hated anytime I interfered with her place in the clan. She, like Talya, was alpha. The two of them had a lot in common. I remembered my challenge against her for leadership of Marcus’s clan. Death for one of us was the only outcome, until I kissed her. Days later, I claimed her as my mate. My wolf never desired a weak mate. But why the hell did the Goddess choose a cat?
Talya was so damn young. Nicolas would want to kick my ass if he knew I’d claimed her without waiting another year until her twenty-first birthday. But, she no longer belonged to Nicolas. She was mine and I had to find a way to accept that.
The farther I ran from the house the more determined my wolf became to return. A recently mated pair was usually inseparable. I stubbornly forced my wolf farther and decided I would look for more evidence of our poachers. I came across another dead alligator an hour later.
The skinned carcass was that of an eight-footer. Such a waste when they could easily harvest the meat. That is, if either the skin or meat were legal. They weren’t. Maybe my rage wouldn’t be as extreme if the poachers used the entire body of the kill. I understood the need for food in desperate situations. I looked down at the skinned remains and knew this was for pure profit. My blood boiled. In my wolf form, I sniffed around and followed their day-old scent to a set of tire tracks, which I recognized. I knew their scent too, but it helped knowing they used the same vehicle.
Another scent—sweet and musky—drowned out that of humans. Talya came through the scrub brush in cat form. Her sleek pelt rippled over her muscled frame. She sauntered closer and an audible whine escaped my wolf. In wolf form I had no success holding it inside.
“So, big boy, you tracking humans?”
It threw me for a moment—her voice whispering through my head. She came closer and I couldn’t resist running my nose against her fur. My wolf knew exactly where he wanted to sniff, but a large paw connected with my snout and I backed off.
My anger, which simmered below the surface anytime I was within twenty feet of a cat, was still there, but not as strong. “Humans are poaching in our territory and I need to spend a night or two out here until I can scare the shit out of them or kill them.” I also needed to apologize, but those words wouldn’t come. “With you at the house I’ll have that opportunity.” She would lighten my load and telling her so was the best I could give for now.
Her feline form circled my body without touching me. “What if I want to go after the humans while you stay at home?”
That was my answer to a half-assed apology. “You think to challenge my authority because we’re mated?”
She stopped and ran the side of her face against the ruff of my neck. “No, I just wanted to know your thoughts.”
I moved a step away. “Maybe another time. I’ve yet to see you fight. I prefer not to have dead humans unless they leave me no choice and I don’t know how calm you will remain if they push.”
“Yes, I see… your wolf is so calm and controlled at all times, so you would be the wiser choice to confront humans.” She sat on her haunches a few feet away. “We need to talk about the female cats.”
Arguing with her would be as pointless as arguing with Alba. I’d win just as many times. The word “zero” pulsed through my brain. I growled low, more frustrated than angry. “Why would I want to discuss cats?”
She returned my low growl. “Your female cats are ashamed of their beast. It’s ingrained from birth. Have you noticed the women and baby don’t shift?”
I hadn’t paid attention, but now, thinking of it, what she said was true. “And I’m supposed to change this?” I walked a foot closer. “How?”
She didn’t back away. “The women fear you and you remind them of the men who terrorized them. They keep their children from shifting because it’s how they protect them. I know you say you hate them, hate me… but do you really want a pack afraid of their inner beast?”
It hurt. I’d fucked up so many things and hated myself more than I could ever hate this pack. I’d stubbornly refused to face the pack’s… my problems. “I don’t know, Talya. I may not be the alpha they need.” It surprised me that I could admit it.
“I think they need us both.”
Maybe, maybe not. I wasn’t ready to go there. “Run with me.” I took off and left the tire tracks behind. It was time to enjoy the untamed land of
the Everglades with my mate. I wasn’t fully accepting our union quite yet, but I decided not to fight for a while.
Talya managed to keep up, though I wasn’t running full out. I knew Nicolas trained his pack to fight. Like mine, his pack had a plethora of wounded female cats. The Moor wanted to live in peace, but in order to do that, you prepare for war. The stronger you were the fewer challenges you faced. The fact that we had two vampires to lead our clan gave us an added edge. But… everyone needed the ability to defend themselves.
This was my clan now and I could no longer return to my former one. My son, Columbus, was their alpha and he earned the right. I would not kill my son. I laughed inside my head because the outcome might not be that simple. Columbus was a worthy opponent who I had trained since birth. These thoughts brought back the sadness of leaving my children.
“Your thoughts are unpleasant, big boy.”
Shit.
“Not your thoughts, your changing mood. It seeps into my brain and my cat echoes the sadness.”
I couldn’t help myself. I remembered, in exquisite detail, claiming her this morning. Her mewling cries and her incredible scent before and after it blended with mine.
She gave a low sexy growl. “You did that on purpose.”
I had. We ran along the bank of a large stream. I led her to a pool of deep water. “Care to go for a swim?”
“Oh, does the big boy need some cooling down?”
I ignored her teasing. “Do cats swim?”
“Only if forced. If I shift it’s not quite as intolerable. I’m not keen on losing another limb due to reptiles with large teeth, though.”
“So my big bad alpha queen is scared?” I shifted and dove into the murky water. There was a very real danger of alligators, but I’d been here before and they hadn’t bothered me.
Her body disappeared below the surface with a little splash. She came up a few feet away and pushed her wet hair from her face. “You didn’t tell me it was so cold.” She treaded water while looking around nervously.
Fang Chronicles: Ivan Page 15